


rage against the dying of the light

by apocalypsepoet



Series: do not go gentle into that good night [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Minor Bill Denbrough/Audra Phillips, Minor Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Not Canon Compliant, Stanley Uris Lives, The Turtle (IT) CAN Help Us, Time Loop, bc fuck canon am i right, eventually, it's not a fix it if stan stays dead!, mentions of adrian mellon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21601846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apocalypsepoet/pseuds/apocalypsepoet
Summary: Richie gets a call from an unknown number with a Derry, Maine area code. Suddenly, he’s throwing up under blinding, burning, trembling spotlights, but not because of a phone call from Mike Hanlon, and not because he’s sick with thoughts of evil clowns, but because he’s drowning in the instant knowledge that he’s definitely, one hundred percent certain, already done this before.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: do not go gentle into that good night [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644208
Comments: 59
Kudos: 447





	rage against the dying of the light

**Author's Note:**

> icyw: i didn't tag as major character death bc while there is a lot of major character death going on, nobody ever really dies in derry
> 
> p.s. time loops are fun as fuck to write
> 
> p.p.s. no beta we die like men

**i.** **  
**It happens like this: Richie Tozier wakes up at 4:26 in the evening, in his house in California, and he orders Chinese takeout. He smokes a bowl while he waits and sorts through 57 new emails. He calls his manager, Stella; verifying the time of his show later. He arrives only slightly late, and five minutes before he’s set to go, he gets a call from Derry, Maine. Suddenly, he’s throwing up under blinding, burning, trembling spotlights, because of a phone call from Mike Hanlon urging him to come back home. He buys a first class ticket on a direct flight to Bangor; justifying it with 'because he can and he deserves it'. He ignores the wave of nausea that threatens to drown him the minute he gets into his cab.

He throws up on his way through airport security because he remembers Eddie fucking Kaspbrak. 

He remembers—standing in front of the Jade of the Orient—that he left what remained of his Chinese takeout on the counter. He’s pissed that his friends are hot. He’s pissed that he left his food out. He’s pissed that he has to eat more Chinese food. He doesn’t even really like it. Too much salt. 

He’s pissed that the moment he meets Eddie’s brown eyes, his very real and very painful feelings come flooding back. It’s as if two fucking decades spent apart mean absolutely fucking nothing. The pure, complete, innocent love he felt for his best friend at age thirteen has not wavered, or splintered, or dissolved with time. Apparently, it lodged itself into his very soul. It is as loud and as present as his racing heart and running mouth. He’s pissed that there’s a huge basket of fortune cookies on the table. And then he’s pissed that his grows an eyeball—silently judging him as if it knows exactly what he is and what he thinks when he meets Eddie’s gaze.

He tries to leave, he really, truly, fucking does. But Stan shows up from the great beyond, because of fucking course he does, and the uneasy nausea is back, so he turns around. And it’s a good thing, too, because Eddie has a hole going straight through his cheek, dimple untouched (thank all fuck), and Bowers predictably goes directly to Mike. Which is how Richie finds himself making a shitty joke and throwing up on the floor of the library because he buried an ancient fucking axe into Henry Bowers’ skull. Oh, and Bill decided to try and kill the evil fucking murder clown all by himself. What a way to end the day.

“Here’s a truth: you’re a sloppy bitch!”

Richie sometimes wonders how he gets himself into situations like this. He throws a rock at a giant alien taking the form of both a spider and a clown, calls it a sloppy bitch, of all fucking things, and suddenly he’s fifteen feet in the air bleeding from his nose. He is surrounded by a bright void that seems so endless and infinite. It has been both a few minutes and a hundred centuries before he vaguely hears someone getting beeped and for once in his fucked up life, it’s not him.

The blinding, burning, trembling lights release their hold on him. He falls; the cavern echoing the bounce of his head on the rocky terrain as it rattles around in his skull. His eyes still a cloudy off-white, struggling to blink the world back into clarity. For a second, he fears his glasses have been lost to the damp and dark. But then his eyes are focusing on a shape above him—a blurry figure turning into a man he knows but does not recognize, not at first, turning into his best friend, his bravest friend—Eddie fucking Kaspbrak. And he’s yelling, smiling, he looks so goddamn proud of whatever he’s going on about. Then it’s like a switch flips and suddenly Richie finds himself covered in blood, can taste the metallic on his tongue as his mouth falls open in shock. He doesn’t hear the way Eddie says his name, doesn’t hear Beverly’s scream or Bill’s cry. The only sound that plays in his ears, on a constant loop, is the sound of a claw piercing through flesh, through bone, and the splatter of blood on glass as it sticks out the other side. 

He doesn’t remember the words they exchange once Eddie is propped up against the cold stone wall. He doesn’t forget the way Eddie smiles at him, even with blood dripping from his mouth. He doesn’t remember how Eddie convinced him to go to the others. He doesn’t forget Eddie’s shitty last words. He doesn’t forget the sound of skin ripping apart. Can’t forget what’s repeating over and over; bouncing around his skull like one of those super balls from the convenience store down the street from the ice cream parlor he and Eddie would meet at most hot summer afternoons. It’s the only thing he hears. 

That is, until he is being pulled from the sewer, away from Eddie’s dull eyes and cold hands, and the squelching sound is replaced with the collapsing of the house; the embodiment of all their fears. He can see nothing but blind rage as his friends keep him from running back into the house. He sees nothing but the fractured world around him stained red behind his thick frames. He can’t see the fall of the house, but he sure does feel it. Richie feels the crack of wooden floorboards, the crunch of glass, the crumbling of walls. He feels everything all at once; it sends shockwaves throughout his body and then he is on the ground, collapsing along with the nightmare come true. He knows his face crumbles into a mess of tears, knows his hands and knees are bloody from the crunch of rocks beneath him, knows his soul is cracking under the weight of falling rubble. Eventually, though. Eventually, he follows them to the quarry. But it is automatic; his feet moving without permission. Tugged forward by an invisible rope tied to the four friends that remain. If he had any say in the matter, he would still be under the house, under rocks and debris, holding Eddie fucking Kaspbrak close, so he doesn’t have to die alone.

He cries in the arms of the remaining losers in dirty water that Eddie always pretended to hate. He relishes their comfort briefly before it all becomes too much. They say nothing when he is the first to leave. 

Richie sinks his pocket knife into the faded grooves of the initials he left in the kissing bridge twenty-seven years ago, watches a turtle slip off the muddy bank into the water below with a little _~~squelch of bone and flesh~~ _splash, then goes back to his room at the townhouse with an unopened bottle of top shelf whiskey and blacks out in the middle of the afternoon.

 **ii.** **  
**Or maybe, it happens like this: the tunnels are filled with debris, the walls of the cave are shaking in terror and defeat, but Eddie is still breathing, nevermind that his pulse is weak and those breaths are shallow and growing further and further apart from each other. Richie and Ben are carrying him up, up through the only clear tunnel, up to the sewers, up, up, further up to the well, and it’s there that Ben realizes Eddie is no longer breathing. They can’t pull him up, dead or alive. It was an impossible hope that Richie latched onto desperately. They leave Eddie at the bottom of the same well Henry Bowers fell into all those years ago. Richie still has to be dragged away, screaming out for Eddie, struggling against his friends who grip him tightly. Outside, in the sun, they all hold him as he collapses in time with the house. Richie doesn’t go to the quarry. The invisible rope connecting him to the four remaining losers is severed. He doesn’t move for a long time. He goes toward the wreckage only after the sun begins to set. He digs through floorboards and glass and sheetrock to the entrance of the well. He ignores every cut, every splinter, every ache. He hears Eddie’s voice at thirteen, chastising him for being so reckless. _“Those splinters will get infected, asshole. When was the last time you got a tetanus shot? You’ll be in the hospital for weeks, months maybe.”_ He goes down with extra rope and removes debris from where Eddie fucking Kaspbrak lays below. Richie gently ties the rope around his chest, making sure to avoid the gaping hole caked in dried blood. He manages to pull him from the well that is no longer his final resting place. He deserves a better ending than that. He takes him to the barrens, to their clubhouse. Carefully, he lays Eddie on the floor in the old hammock they used to fight over.

He finds an old stash of Bev’s vodka behind one of the wood panels. He blacks out in the middle of the night.

 **iii.** **  
**It might go like this, instead: by the time Richie gets to where Eddie has been thrown, he is already dead.

 **iv.** **  
**Richie Tozier wakes up at 4:26 in the evening, in his house in California, and he orders Chinese takeout. He smokes a bowl while he waits and sorts through 85 new emails. He calls his manager, Stella; verifying the time of his show later. He arrives on time, for once in his goddamn life, and five minutes before he’s set to go, he gets a call from Derry, Maine. Suddenly, he’s throwing up under blinding, burning, trembling spotlights, but not because of a phone call from Mike Hanlon, and not because he’s sick with thoughts of evil clowns, but because he’s suffocating under the weight of certainty that he’s definitely, one hundred percent sure, already done this before.

Richie stumbles off stage and calls Mike back. He doesn’t pick up. Richie doesn’t go to Derry, thinking this is all just a drug-induced hallucination. A misremembering of previous traumatic events. That Eddie has already died and Richie has been surviving off of alcohol and drugs to be able to perform. He goes home to an empty house. He falls asleep as the sun begins to rise. 

**v.** **  
**Richie Tozier wakes up at 4:49 in the evening, in his house in California, and he orders Thai food. He smokes a bowl and a half while he waits and sorts through 84 new emails. He calls his manager, Stella; verifying the time of his show later. He arrives only six minutes late, and three minutes before he’s set to go, he gets a call from Derry, Maine. Suddenly, he’s throwing up under blinding, burning, trembling spotlights, but not because of a phone call from Mike Hanlon, and not because he’s sick with thoughts of evil clowns, but because he's suffocating under the weight of certainty that he's definitely, one hundred and twelve percent sure, already done this before.

Richie doesn’t try to call Mike back. He’s not high. It’s not a hallucination. The date on his phone reads Tuesday, August 9th. He skips his show and only stops to pack a bag and then gets on a direct flight to Bangor. 

The moment he meets Eddie’s brown eyes, it’s as if two decades spent apart mean absolutely fucking nothing. His chest fills with the pure, complete, innocent love he felt for his best friend at age thirteen. But it has also grown with time; non-linear as it is. It is steady, durable, united. It is as loud and as present as his racing heart and running mouth. He realizes, under the haze of vodka and the warmth of Eddie’s hand in his, that he falls a little harder with each new iteration of events. And he knows right then that he’s completely and utterly fucked. 

“Hey, so did any of you get a sense of deja vu when Mike called? Or was it just me,” he chuckles over Chinese food and shots. Some of the losers shake their heads. Eddie is the first to reply.

“No, but I crashed my car?” 

He still dies.

 **vi.** **  
**Richie Tozier wakes up at 4:22 in the evening, in his house in California, and he orders pizza from a fancy place down the street. He smokes what’s left of yesterday’s joint while he waits and sorts through 58 new emails. He calls his manager, Stella; verifying the time of his show later. He arrives early, to the complete shock of Stella, and six and a half minutes before he’s set to go, he gets a call from Derry, Maine. Suddenly, he’s throwing up under blinding, burning, trembling spotlights, but not because of a phone call from Mike Hanlon, and not because he’s sick with thoughts of evil clowns, but because he’s suffocating under the weight of certainty that he's definitely, one hundred and fifty-six percent sure, already done this before.

Has done this a few times before, actually. He calls Mike back. Leaves a voicemail. 

“I’ve lived this week already. Stan’s probably already dead and your shit fucking ritual doesn’t work. Eddie dies in the cave. Can’t you remember? We’ve done this already. We’ve done all of it before, and I can’t do it again. Sorry.”

Mike calls him back an hour later.

 _“Stan’s going to be alright.”_ That’s new. _“I called him after I heard your voicemail. His wife found him in the bathtub, bleeding but alive. He isn’t coming, obviously, but we could use your help.”_

“Holy fuck.”

_“So, how’d you know all that, man?”_

Richie takes a deep breath. His memories of the previous attempts blur together in his brain. “I told you,” he says. “We’ve done this before.” Silence falls over the connection. And then, 

_“I think—I think I may understand what you’re saying.”_

Richie gets on a direct flight to Bangor because Mike saved Stan and maybe that gives him hope. Hope that if Stan survived, Eddie can too, and it’ll break whatever cycle he’s found himself in. 

It’s Adrian Mellon’s head in the fridge. They don’t bother with the ritual because Mike tells the group that it probably won’t work, glancing at Richie with a vague sense of recognition in his eyes. A memory of a red balloon from an earlier try flashes in between the pair. Four things happen this time that differ from their previous tries. 

  1. Richie doesn’t look into the deadlights. 
  2. Mike gets torn to pieces. 
  3. Eddie dies before Richie can get to him. 
  4. Stan doesn’t pull through. 



**vii.** **  
**Here’s how it could have happened: when Mike calls, Richie doesn’t go on stage. He remembers—suddenly, all at once—all their previous attempts, all their childhood memories. He asks Mike how he feels after dying for the first time. ‘I’m great, actually,’ he says, unfazed. Richie tells him not to call Stan. Mike said he wasn’t planning on it since he tried killing himself the last time. All of the last times, actually. Richie releases a breath he’d been holding. Mike _knows_. Mike _remembers_. Richie’s no longer alone, and no longer feels crazy. 

“Did you call Eddie already?”

_“No. Should I?”_

“Maybe not.”

They don’t call Eddie. He dies in a car accident two days later. Stan’s plane crashes into the Caribbean.

 **viii.** **  
**It goes like this: Richie Tozier wakes up at 1:27 PM to his phone ringing next to his face on his pillow. It’s an unknown caller from Derry, Maine. Mike Hanlon sounds stressed.

_“Why the fuck is this happening, man?”_

“I have no fucking idea.” 

_“Do you think It’s messing with us? What if this is all him?”_

“Maybe? Some part of me hopes not. But it does seem like something It would do, torture us week after week, never letting us get any actual sleep, making us relieve the most awful shit over and over.” Mike sighs over the line. Richie can practically feel him shake his head. 

_“This is all such bullshit.”_

“Yeah, well. It’s the cards we were dealt, I guess.”

_“God, how many times has it been already?”_

“Ten, maybe?”

 _“Fuck. Stan and Eddie have died ten times?”_ Richie chuckles dryly. Pushes his glasses up onto his forehead and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah.” A pause, and then,

 _“I’m sorry Ben dragged you away.”_ On some level, Mike _must_ know. Maybe even from when they were kids. Instead of the fear Richie’s felt his whole life, he feels relieved. Loved. 

“It’s not like he hasn’t done it before.” Silence. Richie continues. “Do you think anyone else is starting to remember our previous endeavors?”

_“I’ll call Bill and ask him about it. Maybe his memories will come back faster and we’ll have a third loser dealing with this mess this time around.”_

Richie loses himself in an old memory of Bill crying out for Eddie as he’s tossed to the side like he’s nothing. He thinks it’s from the first time. He sucks in a gasp, a sudden urge to cry envelops him.

_“Rich? You alright?”_

“Mike,” he manages to whisper.

_“Yeah, I’m here.”_

“I don’t think I can watch Eddie die again.”

 _“We won’t let that happen this time,”_ he promises. And Mike sounds sure. So sure, in fact, that Richie books the next flight out to Bangor. This time, Richie attaches himself to Eddie’s hip. He’s the appointed Eddie Kaspbrak Shadow. Eddie pretends to mind.

“I don’t give a fuck what Mike or Bill says about splitting up. It’s a bad fucking idea.” Eddie’s following Richie out of the barrens. Seems like the shadowing goes both ways, but hasn’t it always? Richie turns to respond, pretending not to know. “Where do you think your thing is?”

Eddie pauses; thinking back, sorting through the mess of unorganized memories. “I called in an inhaler before I got here, maybe it’s that? So the pharmacy.” Richie nods, gesturing for Eddie to take the lead. At first, he resigns himself to waiting outside, but knowing the leper that haunted Eddie for years is waiting for him down in the basement breaks his resolve. He catches up to Eddie on the stairs and they descend together.

Eddie pulls back the curtain to reveal nothing. He turns around to make a joke and that’s when the leper grabs hold of Richie, tugging him back towards the stairs. Gracelessly, Richie slips out of it’s grip and Eddie uses the slight distraction to grab it's neck and shove it against the nearest wall. He’s choking it and somehow it looks so much smaller than he remembers. Then it vomits black sludge all over Eddie and disappears. Richie grimaces as he approaches Eddie, but uses his sleeve to wipe his face off. “Thanks,” Eddie mumbles. “Your turn.”

And Richie isn’t sure he’s ready for that. His encounter with It is not public knowledge to the losers. He’d have to explain so much of it, and he’d really rather do anything else. But maybe it’ll break the cycle. He leads Eddie to the dilapidated arcade and breaks in; despite half-hearted protests from Eddie himself.

“Why are we here?”

“Bowers ran me outta here when I tried to play Street Fighter with his cousin.”

“Bowers has a cousin?” Definitely not the question he’d been expecting.

“Yeah, I wish I had known that. Could have avoided that whole confrontation.” Richie laughs weakly, pulling out a quarter. He walks to the token machine and slips the quarter in. A single arcade token falls into the cup. Richie takes it; holds it up in an ‘aha!’ moment. Eddie smiles. They end up in the park Richie ran off to by total accident. Richie knew on some level that it’s where he needed to be, but Eddie led them there. And shortly after they arrive, they encounter Pennywise. 

“Oh Richie! I’ve missed you,” It mocks. “And looky here! You’ve brought the object of your affections along. How sweet.” Eddie looks away from the clown, confusion written clearly on his face. Richie clenches his fists at his sides and puts Eddie behind him.

“Did you forget, Richie? Did you forget that I know your secret? Your dirty little secret,” It taunts, singsong and humiliating. It scatters papers onto the ground from his position atop the Paul Bunyan statue. Eddie picks one up, horrified at what’s apparently Richie’s obituary. _It’s just like the missing poster from all those years ago_ , his brain supplies. He reaches for Richie’s hand, slipping his fingers between his best friends’. 

Pennywise shrieks in abject delight. “Cute, cute, cute! Eddie Spaghetti!” And then back to Richie, “Don’t touch the other boys, Richie, or they’ll know what I know!”

The two of them run out of there just as Paul comes alive. They make it back to the townhouse without another encounter. They take a second to catch their breath, and then they are falling over each other with laughter. Horrified laughter, but laughter all the same.

“Rich, what,” Eddie gulps down air, “what the fuck was he talking about?” He tries for a serious tone, but a giggle escapes him without permission. Tears form in Richie’s eyes and his hands are shaking at his sides, but he does not look away. 

“I—I’m,” he starts. “I don’t, um. I mean, I don’t think—” Eddie holds up a hand. 

“It’s okay Rich. Whenever you’re ready to talk, I’m here, yeah?” He offers one of his rare smiles that are reserved for Richie Tozier only. Richie returns his grin, then foolishly asks why, like a dumbass. “Because you’re still my best friend, dumbass.”

Richie closes his eyes before the deadlights find him. He searches the cavern for Eddie. _I’m ready_ , he thinks. 

Mike breaks his promise.

 **ix.** **  
**Sometimes, it goes this way: after Richie hangs up with Mike, he cancels his show. Stella is appropriately furious and threatens to quit, but she does that so often that Richie knows it’s not serious. He gets a call from Los Angeles, California.

_“Mike says we’ve buh-been repeating th-this week?”_

“Hello to you, too, Big Bill.”

_“I th-think I get it. Remember, I mean. We drag you out every time. Or we try to, right?”_

“Oh thank fuck.” The relief Richie feels is a tangible thing. More so than the house on Neibolt street collapsing again and again and again. “What’s your take on the whole situation?”

_“You think it could buh-be Pennywise duh-doing this?”_

“No. Not anymore. I feel like he’d be using it against us by now. Mocking us for failing again, you know? But It’s consistent. Things only change if we change something, like a domino effect.”

_“Alright, makes s-sense, but I wuh-wouldn’t discount it just yet.”_

“Sure thing Big Bill. Any other ideas?”

_“Let me go a few rounds.”_

Stanley doesn’t show and Eddie dies choking on his own joke. Bill doesn’t try to convince Richie to leave. 

**x.** **  
**Once, it went like this: Richie Tozier wakes up at 1:24 PM to his phone ringing next to his face on his pillow. It’s an unknown caller from Los Angeles, California. Bill Denbrough sounds tired.

_“Does it ever hurt?”_

Richie understands the exhaustion. “Does what hurt?”

_“You know, dying.”_

“Dude I honestly think I black out before any of the rocks land on me.”

_“Damn. We sh-should tell Ben and Bev soon.”_

“Yeah, let’s tell Ben. It’ll be nice to not to be manhandled out of a collapsing cave.” Bill laughs over the line. Richie smiles in the following silence. 

_“Hey, Rich?”_

“Yeah, what’s up.”

_“Why do you always try to s-s-stay with Eddie?”_

And isn’t that the fucking million dollar question right there. He thinks Bill knows, in a way. He thinks they all must know something. Every iteration of this shitty fucking week, he grows less and less subtle. While Eddie is and always will be the most important person in his life, Richie’s been trying to get closer to all the losers. He asks different questions each time, tells different jokes, gives more hugs. Stares at Eddie too long in the restaurant, because it’s the first time he’s seeing him alive after clutching his limp body to his chest protectively. Remembers more and more memories of their collective past. Remembers more and more of Eddie fucking Kaspbrak—his best friend, his bravest friend. And Richie knows the answer to Bill’s question, but so does Bill; he must. A memory comes back, then. Stanley. Stan in Richie’s room, holding him as Richie cries into his shoulder. Stan was the first person Richie ever told. Stan knows. Stan knows all of it, somewhere out there in Georgia. Stan knows and Richie no longer feels all that afraid to say it out loud.

“I think I love him.”

 _“Oh,”_ Bill replies easily. _“That makes sense.”_

“Huh.” The line buzzes with an indescribable tension. “That’s it? What the fuck was I scared of all these years!”

 _“We always kind of guh-guessed.”_ A pause, then a gasp. _“Bev and I had a bet! Oh my god, I owe her s-so much mh-mh-money!”_

“What the fuck? A fucking bet? You guys fucking bet on me! Fuckin’ assholes,” he laughs. “Good thing you make buckets of cash with all your shitty fuckin’ endings!” Bill laughs. It’s still one of the best sounds Richie’s ever heard.

_“Beep beep, Rich. I’ll s-s-see you soon.”_

Richie hangs up the phone and cries the whole flight. He hugs Eddie longer than usual. Glances up at him throughout dinner the entire night. Wishes he could gather the same courage he had with Bill on the phone earlier. With Stan in his room so long ago. Wishes he could tell Eddie. _I’m ready now Eds_ , he thinks. _Please don’t die this time._

Eddie tells Richie that he fucked his mom as blood falls from his lips.

“Eddie, I—”

“Go. They need you.” Richie shakes his head, determined to see it through for once in his goddamn life. He gently takes Eddie’s face between his hands. 

“You need me more.”

“Rich—”

“Eddie, I—I think I’ve loved you my whole life.”

Eddie inhales sharply which makes him cough up more blood, doe eyes wide and quickly filling with tears. “Richie,” his name is a sigh, a leaf dancing on a breeze, delicately falling from crimson lips. “You know, I—” 

Richie’s hands are still on his cheeks when Eddie slips away. At least ‘I fucked your mom’ wasn’t the last thing he said.

Richie panics on the ground outside what’s left of the house. Eddie’s going to remember eventually; they’ll have to tell him if they can’t figure out how to stop the cycle. And Richie just told him he loved him. Oops. He laughs, suddenly. Bill crouches down next to him with a question in his eyes.

“I told him, Bill. Gay panic activated.” The remaining losers send each other uncertain looks, like they’re intruding on a private moment.

Bill laughs loudly, unexpected. He hugs Richie; kisses his cheek, tells him that they’ll give it another go soon enough. They get up and start making their way to the quarry on autopilot. An invisible rope pulling them to the cliffs’ edge. The walk is silent, heavy, drowning in grief. But then Bev stops in her tracks.

“Bill! Bill owes me four hundred dollars!”

 **xi.** **  
**Maybe it happens this way: Ben is in Richie’s room at the townhouse, trying to convince him to stay. He’s pacing, watching Richie fiddle with a drawstring backpack that has his stupid fucking face on it. Richie sometimes tries to leave Derry with Eddie. Sometimes they don’t even get past the door. Other times they make it all the way out to the welcome sign. Those times, they usually end up upside down in a ditch as soon as the rental car meets the town line. He’s not going to leave today.

“Ben, save it. Please. You’ve given me this same fucking speech like, eight times already.”

He stops pacing. Looks at Richie. Furrows his brow in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“We’ve lived this week before. Can’t you remember?”

“Is this a bit?” Ben huffs out an exasperated laugh, scrubbing his hand over his mouth. 

“Damn, Haystack. You’d think a guy would remember kissing the woman he’s been pining over for like, centuries.”

More confusion. Then—thank fuck—recognition. Ben’s eyes light up with a fire that can only be described as January fucking embers. Cold, dark, exhausted, but still so very alive. 

“Oh, fuck. Shit dude!” Richie smiles, big and toothy. Three down, three to go. Maybe. They probably shouldn’t tell Eddie, but that’s a problem for a future week. They hug, because Ben’s always been a hugger. It’s tight and broken and Richie can feel the sorrow spilling from Ben as he remembers the groups’ previous attempts to kill a fucking clown.

Richie doesn’t bother taunting It before getting caught in the deadlights. It gives him just enough extra time to come back to himself after he falls, to push Eddie out of the way. It’s claw stabs clean through; settling right between his ribcage. It pulls back with a sickening squelch, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of Richie’s chest. He faintly hears Eddie screaming his name, but it’s mostly drowned out by the sound of blood rushing from his head. He shuts his eyes tightly, and the next thing he knows, he’s propped up against a wall with Eddie’s hoodie balled up on the wound. 

“Rich? Richie, holy shit. Richie, you gotta stay awake, man!”

“Eds—”

“No, don’t ‘Eds’ me, Richie, you know I—” Eddie freezes. His eyes seem impossibly large; impossibly bright, even if they’re full of grief. Grief, desperation, and then. Then, fuck, recognition? “—hate that shit,” He mumbles. He looks back at the others who seem to be shouting at the clown.

“Eddie. You need to help them.”

“No, Richie, shut the fuck up,” He does the chopping motion with his hand that Richie loves so much. “Do you know how fast you’ll bleed out if you don’t keep pressure on the wound?”

“I can...can do. I can do it,” Richie slurs. Eddie shakes his head. 

“I got it, Rich.” 

“Eddie. It won’t matter much—” Eddie cuts him off.

“You’re not dying today, _Richard_. You _can’t_ , okay? You’re not allowed to die and leave me all alone! I just got you back, asshole.” He’s pleading, crying. Richie reaches up to wipe a few tears from his cheek. Eddie grabs his wrist and holds his hand there. Their eyes meet; that unspoken, hidden, beautiful thing igniting once more. Richie uses all his strength to pull Eddie down; foreheads meeting messily. He smiles at those brightly burning doe eyes.

“Eddie,” he whispers, careful not to spit out too much blood.

“Rich,” Eddie cries back softly. He was always extra gentle, always so soft when Richie was hurt. “Please.” Eddie squeezes his wrist. “Please don’t go.” 

“Eds—“ Eddie shakes his head. “I’m glad it was me.”

 **xii.** **  
**This is how it goes: Mike calls Bill, Bill calls Richie, and Richie calls Ben. Ben remembers their conversation in the townhouse after some light encouragement and a word-for-word rendition of the poem he wrote Bev all those years ago. They end up talking for a long while; discussing theories as to why this is happening, what they could do to stop the loop, what they’ve been up to the past few decades. Ben’s just as lonely as Richie, he finds out. He works constantly to keep his inner demons at bay; works to distract himself from the empty feeling that tries to claw its way to the surface every night when his head hits the pillow. Ben takes a picture of the yearbook signature from his wallet and Richie gives him good natured shit for it. They talk about pining over their respective best friends.

_“I honestly thought you guys were together when we met. You just acted like you’d been married for fucking ever.”_

“Yeah,” Richie laughs. “Looking back, I wasn’t very subtle.”

 _“Hey, but neither was he! He’d always climb into the hammock with you, annoyed as he was.” Ben chuckles. “I think he thought it was the only way he could get close to you without giving anything away.”_ Richie sighs. He’s so fucking drained. 

“I really don’t think I can do this much longer, Ben.”

_“Rich, we’re going to figure this out. Hey, I just remembered! One time, I think we were juniors? Eddie asked me how I pined after Bev so effortlessly. He said something like, ‘how can you stand it? How can you watch the person you love, love someone else?’ And I told him that letting Beverly be happy was the easiest thing in the world.”_

“Aw, Ben. You should’ve been the writer of our group. You’d definitely write better endings than our dear old Denbrough.” Ben simply ignored Richie’s deflection. He’d always been suspiciously good at that.

_“Weren’t you with Beth Johnson junior year?”_

“You think he was referring to me?” His chest tightens in a flame of warmth. He thinks it could be panic, or a fever, or a heart attack.

_“You can be so goddamn dense, man. Remember the time I had to patch up a hole in the clubhouse? It was ‘cause Eddie punched the wall after he found out you asked her to prom.”_

This time, he can name the feeling that surges through his chest. Hope. “Fuck.”

 **xiii.** **  
**It goes something like this: four out of seven losers wake up on a normal Tuesday, and by midnight they remember most of their childhoods as well as every time they’ve woken up on this particular Tuesday before the Tuesday they’re in now. They make their way to Derry. Mike saves Adrian while the others board their flights. He calls Stan; tells him to get to Derry and not kill himself for once. Stan has no idea what he means. Stan still doesn’t show. Richie stays out of the deadlights.

Eddie still dies. 

Ben takes Richie back to the townhouse instead of the quarry. He forces him to shower, then showers himself while Richie changes and eats a protein bar. Ben curls around him when he finds Richie silently choking back sobs on his bed. He understands more than most, Richie thinks. 

Bill and Mike are downstairs telling Beverly that this is probably like, the fiftieth time _(more like thirteen, Bill, for fucks sake)_ they’ve lived this day, this fucking week. She’s not hard to convince. The first thing she remembers is that Bill owes her four hundred dollars. He owes her because—because. _Richie_. Richie loves Eddie. Her hand goes to her open mouth as her vision blurs; Eddie is dead under the house on Neibolt Street. She runs up to Richie’s room where she finds him and Ben asleep, wrapped around each other. She kneels down next to Richie’s face; brushes his hair from his eyes and takes his glasses off. She leaves a kiss to his temple, then goes back downstairs to get blackout drunk with the losers left awake and alive. 

**xiv.** **  
**Or it could have gone like this: once the initial calls are made—Eddie excluded, it’s now an unspoken rule that no one tell Eddie of their current _Groundhog Day_ situation—and memories are recovered, Beverly shows up at Eddie’s house. She never did listen to the boys when they were being stupid; she’s not going to start now. And they’re being absolutely stupid. Not telling Eddie because, what, he might feel some phantom pains? So, so stupid.

She’s covered in bruises and Eddie fusses over her as he pushes her inside, but she welcomes it. She reassures him that her husband got it worse, and that she won’t be going back to him. Then she tells him that this has happened at least a dozen times before.

“Him beating you?”

“No, well, technically yes, but I meant going to Derry.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean.”

“You know. You remember bits and pieces, don’t you? The others didn’t want to tell you. They don’t even know I’m here right now.”

“The others?” A pause. Then his eyes widen. “The others!” Bev nods enthusiastically, grinning. “Wait, why shouldn’t you be here?”

“The losers don’t think you should know what’s been happening. But I think you need to know, for us to get the fuck out of this hellhole.” Eddie laughs. 

“We’re not even in Derry yet.” He makes them tea. He ignored Myra complaining about the surprise company, and he ignores her questions now. They take their mugs to the enclosed porch out back.

“So.”

“So,” Bev replies, blowing on her tea.

“What is it I need to know?”

Bev takes a deep breath. Richie is going to be so pissed, but this needs to be done. Eddie deserves to know. “We keep reliving the same week over and over. Stan kills himself. Mike lies about a ritual. We bully Pennywise to death, but you die every time. Richie thought if we told you, you’d remember every one of your deaths. He didn’t want to do that to you.”

Bev watches Eddie process her words. Watches how his mouth carefully rolls Richie’s name around. Watches as his chest tightens and the knuckles of the hand clutching the mug grow white. Eddie sucks in a harsh, long breath, as if he’d died a dozen times and is just now being revived. The mug falls to the wooden floor. He looks up at Beverly, eyes wide and watery. He lays a hand over the spot where he’s impaled three days from now. She puts her hand over his; comforting and warm. It’s silent except for the sharp breaths Eddie is taking and releasing—inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Then,

“Could I...could I call Richie?”

“Of course honey.” Bev taps away at her phone for a moment then holds it out to him. Richie answers on the second ring.

_“Hey Bev, when are you leaving?”_

“Richie,” Eddie breathes, all traces of panic evaporate from him.

Bev hears a choking sound from the phone. She’s certainly going to get yelled at. 

_“Eds?”_

“Richie, Richie. Holy shit, you’re alright, you’re alive. Fuck, Richie, you know I—” Eddie freezes. Bev thinks Rich does, too. She remembers this conversation. Those were his last words a few attempts back. _“Richie.”_

_“I—I’m here, Eds.”_

“Don’t call me Eds.” She hears Richie’s watery laughter. Eddie grins as his vision blurs. His eyes flit around, unable to focus on a single thing as he gains memories, both old and new, back from the abyss that is the Derry curse. 

“Richie,” He looks up at Bev then, smile radiant. “Richie. I think I did, too. I did. I do, you know? I’m—I’ll see you soon, okay?” 

_“Okay, Eddie. Okay.”_

Eddie holds his chest the entire flight with the arm that’d been wrapped in plaster all those years ago. Beverly holds his left hand; traces the tan line of where his ring should be, instead of on his dresser. They don’t speak. There is no need for words. Her own naked finger itches with thoughts of Ben. 

The losers meet them at the airport instead of the restaurant. Eddie will deny that he flings himself at Richie. Their hug is long and desperate and broken and whole. Eddie pulls back eventually, connecting their foreheads. He whispers “I remember. I remember but it’s okay. It’s okay because you’ve loved me all this time.” Richie will deny that he cries. He nods, apologies slipping from his lips. Eddie laughs wetly, a sound Richie is so very familiar to at this point. “Richie, you know I—I loved you, too. Still do.”

And it’s so much fucking worse this time, when Eddie dies and they have to leave Richie behind. 

**xv.** **  
**Here’s the way it goes next: nothing changes. They all remember the weeks they’ve lived, but no one mentions them. The losers recreate the first time they landed in Derry. Sometimes it’s just easier to revert to old patterns in times of crisis and chaos. It’s easier to be someone else for a little while. Easier to pretend that these friends are practically strangers after decades apart. It won’t hurt as much, they tell themselves. (They’re wrong. It does).

 **xvi.** **  
**Perhaps it goes like this: the losers stand in a circle around the burning artifacts, leaving a space for Stanley, when Mike speaks.

“What if Stanley’s the key?” 

Bill looks over to him. “What duh-duh-do you mean?” The ritual is almost complete. The lights are swallowed up.

“What if Stan has to be here to stop the loop?”

“If that’s the case, then we’re fucked.” Eddie hits Richie’s arm. “What? We can’t have a fuckin' five minute conversation without the guy offing himself!” The balloon appears, red and swollen.

Eddie furrows his brow. “Wait, who calls him?”

Bill, Ben, and Richie all speak at once, “Mike.”

“Richie, you call him next time.” He nods.

“Okay Eds.”

“Don’t call me Eds. And don’t tell him about the clown, keep him talking long enough for him to remember you, and then mention Derry.”

Richie doesn’t look into the deadlights and the events play out similarly to attempts six, eight, and thirteen. Pennywise thrashes around aimlessly, knocking into Eddie and throwing him against a wall. He hits his head and dies on impact. The losers stay, even as the cavern collapses around them, too weary to try and make an escape. Too scared to be without one another.

 **xvii.** **  
**Richie gets a call at 4:52 in the evening from Derry, Maine. Mike Hanlon tells him to get his ass home, and gives him Stanley Uris’ number.

Richie calls Stan and they talk for three and a half hours. Stanley doesn’t get in the bath. He hangs himself instead.

They show up to the restaurant anyway. Might as well, right? They’ve got nothing to lose. And maybe, maybe they don’t actually need Stan. Maybe the love between six losers is enough. (It’s not, they know this, but it goes unspoken). Ben suggests they just take their food to go, and head back to Mike's place. “Fuck the fortune cookies,” he says, as their dinners get packed away. They all pile into Eddie’s ridiculous Chevy Traverse after Richie yells “shotgun!” and even though Eddie spends five minutes lecturing them (see: Richie) about the dangers of driving one-handed, their hands rest tightly clasped together on the center console the entire drive. 

They eat on the floor of Mike’s loft above the library. The losers laugh a lot. They laugh more this time than all their other times combined, Richie thinks. They stay awake; even as the sky grows lighter—on Mike’s dusty floor—until Eddie begins to complain about needing a shower, so they make their way back to the townhouse. When they get to their rooms, Eddie walks past his and right into Richie’s. Richie raises his eyebrow; smirking.

“Bowers will show up eventually. I don’t want to be there when he does,” Eddie explains, shrugging and heading into the bathroom. He pauses, looks over his shoulder to call out. “You coming or what?”

They wake up to loud knocking at the door, and Eddie all but falls out of bed trying to untangle himself from Richie. He stumbles his way over to unlock the door as Richie stifles his laughs with a pillow. The door swings open to reveal Bill.

“Puh-Pennywise took Mike.”

When Richie falls from the deadlights, he pushes Eddie off of him and far, far away from the talon about to pierce his chest. It’s claw stabs clean through; settling to the left side of his ribcage. It pulls back with a sickening squelch, leaving a gaping hole where Richie’s lung should be inflating. He faintly hears Eddie screaming his name, but it’s mostly drowned out by the sound of blood rushing from his head. He shuts his eyes tightly, and the next thing he knows, he’s propped up against a wall with Eddie’s hoodie balled up on the wound. 

“Richie you stupid _fuck_!” 

“Hngh—” His breathing is harsh and wheezy. 

“Don’t you fucking die on me Rich, I swear to every god and deity out there. If you die after we fucked around I will never fucking forgive you.” His hand caresses Richie’s jaw; wiping away the blood dripping from his lips. Eddie chokes out a sob that sounds more like Richie’s name than anything, and the fucker has the audacity to smile; crimson teeth and all.

“—’m glad was me.”

 **xviii.** **  
**It might go like this: Stan’s memories come back so goddamn slowly. Richie talks about everything and nothing. He tells Stan that he’s gay.

_“Yeah, I know.”_

Richie smiles. “Oh yeah? And how did you know, Staniel?”

_“You told me. Oh! You told me. That summer, on your bedroom floor. You cried like a baby.”_

“I was a thirteen year old, closeted gay, in 1989, Stan. You try telling that to your best friend without crying.”

 _“No thanks.”_ Richie hears the smile on Stan’s face. 

“Stan. Can you remember _anything_ from the weeks of our own private Bill Murray hell?”

_“If what you’re saying is true, and I’m not saying I believe you, then it wasn’t just a dream I had about crashing into the ocean, was it?”_

“Ding, ding, Stan the Man!” Richie is so goddamn relieved. “You are correctamundo!”

_“How wonderful.”_

“Hey, listen to me. I know you’re scared. It’s fucking terrifying. But I promise you, I fucking swear on Eddie’s mom that if you come back, we’ll fix it. We’ve killed it every single time so far. We need you, Stan.”

_“I—alright. Alright.”_

When Richie arrives at the Jade of the Orient, he’s greeted by Mike, Bill, Eddie, and Stan. For once, he hugs Stan the longest, and Eddie is only slightly jealous. The losers spend dinner making a game plan. They decide that a trip down memory lane would be futile at this point. For the first time since, well, the _first time_ , they all get a good nights’ sleep at the townhouse. They all feel sort of invincible when they stop just outside the house on Neibolt Street. Stan’s decapitated as soon as he steps into the foyer, and his head sprouts eight legs. 

Their deaths are slow.

 **xix.** **  
**When Richie gets off the phone with Mike, he’s enraged. It didn’t fucking work. Pennywise knew, laid in wait for them. Unbelievable. He calls Eddie.

_“Maybe we have to do it like the first time. You know, the artifacts, the ritual, Bowers stabbing my face.”_

Richie flinches at the mention of Bowers. Old habits die hard and all that jazz. “But everything changes if Stan comes.”

_“It doesn’t have to.”_

“Please elaborate, my Eddie Spaghetti.”

_“Shut the fuck up. I mean like, what if we just let it play out like it’s supposed to? Just, with Stan alive. No planning, no discussing our previous tries.”_

“No hand-holding?” 

_“Jesus Christ, you’re so fucking needy.”_

“Yet you love me anyway.”

_“God knows why. I’ll see you soon.”_

“Eds.”

_“Trashmouth.”_

“Love you.”

_“Love you, too.”_

Their fortunes say ‘Guess the losers are all grown up’, which is just fan-fucking-tastic. Mike beats the table with his chair. Richie yells at the kid. In the morning, they regroup only to split up to get their artifacts. After that little side quest of horror and childhood trauma is over, Stan and Richie go for a walk and end up watching a turtle trying to cross the street. Stan eventually picks it up and places it delicately into the small river running through the middle of Derry. Chaos spills out of the townhouse when they get back; Eddie got stabbed in the face. Mike gets attacked by Bowers. Stan drives an axe through his head. Bill tries to go kill It by himself. Richie says it best. “Let’s kill that fucking clown.” Everything seems to be going the same way it happened the first time. 

Until Stan gets caught in the deadlights instead. 

The rest of the losers immediately collapse into darkness.

 **xx.** **  
**It happens like this: Richie Tozier wakes up at 4:26 in the evening, in his house in California, and he orders Chinese takeout. He sorts through 57 new emails while he waits. He calls his manager, Stella; verifying the time of his show later. He arrives on time, for once in his goddamn life, and five minutes before he’s set to go, he gets a call from Derry, Maine. Suddenly, he’s throwing up under blinding, burning, trembling spotlights, because of a phone call from Mike Hanlon begging him to come back home. He doesn’t remember a goddamn thing besides crippling anxiety and downright fear that courses through him when he thinks of Derry. He tries and nearly fails to ignore the wave of nausea that threatens to drown him the minute he gets into his cab.

He throws up on his way through airport security because he remembers Eddie fucking Kaspbrak, his best friend—his bravest friend. The small athsmatic kid who used a bright red marker to change _loser_ into _lover_ , who took care of a bleeding new kid despite his reservations, who kicked something evil and dangerous and cruel right in the fucking face. He can’t remember what it was, and that thought alone has him grabbing for the barf bag. He sleeps the rest of his flight and throws up _(for the love of all holy things, he hasn’t even_ eaten _today)_ outside his rental car because a pair of initials burn into the back of his eyes.

Bill Denbrough is in the middle of shooting a scene for the newest film adaptation of one of his books when Mike Hanlon from Derry calls. For the first time in a little over two decades, Bill stutters. He drops everything and heads to the closest airport, promising Audra an explanation when he returns. “I know I don’t say it enough, buh-but I love you.” She only nods, understanding of the wild look in eyes, worried over his stuttering. “Okay Bill,” she says, kissing his cheek then wiping off the mark of fake blood she leaves in her wake. “I love you, too.”

Beverly Marsh talks to Mike Hanlon for only six and a half minutes, which is six minutes too long for her husband. He erupts like a volcano; lava spilling like tendrils, reaching out to choke her. She leaves her ring on her bedside table after hitting him with framed photographs of their wedding; glass shattering like snowflakes under a moonlit sky, and covers her bruises while she’s stuck in traffic. 

Ben Hanscom had just gotten off a Skype meeting when Mike Hanlon calls. He’s apprehensive at first, but a few memories trickle in as the conversation continues, and he is instantly grateful. He wasn’t always alone. He had friends, once. Great friends; a band of misfits that became a family one summer. He’s as excited as he is afraid to go home. He packs and leaves; he’s got no one in his current life that will care all that much if he disappears for a few days. The ones that do care are what’s waiting for him at the end of the night.

Eddie Kaspbrak calls his wife ‘mommy’ and crashes into a taxi after he talks to Mike Hanlon. A flash of pain shoots up his right arm and he promptly remembers having to wear a cast for eight weeks because he broke it when he was thirteen. He doesn’t remember how he broke it, but he does recall a lanky boy with comically large glasses trying to set it back into place to alleviate some of the pain. Eddie’s paralyzed in fear; just the thought of returning to the hometown he conveniently forgot about has him frozen. But then he puts a name to the face of the boy with the ugly patterned shirts and immediately knows he must go home. Because it’s Richie. _Richie_.

He packs two suitcases of what’s most significant to him as quickly as he can with his wailing wife following his every step. He drops his wedding ring on the kitchen table and leaves his lawyer a voicemail.

Stanley Uris gets a phone call from Derry, Maine while he’s working on a puzzle. He hears Mike Hanlon talking, but he can’t focus long enough to listen. His mind is hazy; memories of so many different lives breaking down walls he didn’t even realize he had constructed. He thinks of this present, the one he exists in right now, and then thinks of all the presents he’s lived before. All the presents he’s died before. It gives him whiplash. He tells Mike he’ll be there. He doesn’t take a bath.

He heads upstairs to pack a bag, and though he is a quiet man, his silence is unnerving. Patty lets him put a duffle together, knowing that he will talk when he’s ready. He meets her eyes from where she stands on the opposite side of their bed. Stan takes a thoughtful breath and releases it slowly; fat tears building up and falling with it. 

“You know how I never talk about my childhood?” Patty nods. “It’s because I couldn’t remember it. And I know that sounds absolutely crazy, which is why what I’m about to tell you next is going to be the most batshit story you’ve ever heard.”

“Okay,” she replies, small and worried.

“Let me start off by saying that I would never, ever lie to you. No matter what.” She nods again, lips quirked up briefly. “It began the summer of ‘89, when my friend Bill’s little brother disappeared.”

* * *

Richie is in the middle of hugging Eddie fucking Kaspbrak when Stanley fucking Uris arrives, his wife alongside him, hand in hand. He separates from a reluctant Eddie to haul Stan into the type of hug he’d hate as a kid. Stan hugs him back just as fiercely, kissing his cheek like a madman. 

“Damn Staniel, two minutes in and you’re already trying to hop on the Tozier Express, huh? How’s the wife gonna feel about that later?” A symphony of ‘ _beep beep, Richie_ ’s answer his question. Patty laughs and kisses Richie’s other cheek. 

“My husband has _standards_ , Richard.” The losers burst with laughter.

“Oh, I like her!”

The losers don’t mention a time loop or Bill Murray, and somehow Stan knows that this is how it’s supposed to go. He is the only one who is allowed to remember their past tries and he’s surprisingly okay with that. He laughs with his oldest friends. Bill chokes on his water because Richie’s still fucking making jokes at Eddie’s expense. Stan pretends not to notice Ben staring at Beverly. He pretends not to know why Richie takes a shot without using his hands. He switches seats with Eddie so him and Richie can arm wrestle like children. 

The fortunes say ‘Guess the losers are all grown up’, which is just fan-fucking-tastic. Richie jumps out of his seat, watching in horror as his fortune cookie grows an eyeball—silently judging him as if it knows exactly what he is. Mike beats the table with his chair. Richie yells at a poor kid. 

Outside, Richie and Eddie resolve to get the fuck out of Derry. Mike tries to reason with them, but it’s useless. They get into their cars and speed off. Stan knows that this is what’s meant to happen, so he lets them flee. They make their way back to the townhouse to find Eddie lugging his gigantic suitcases down the stairs and Bev pouring drinks for her and Ben. 

“My husband and I didn’t come all this way to help kill a clown just for you two to chicken out.”

Everyone turns to Patty Uris, mouths gaping and eyes wide. Ben’s the first to break the awkward, confused silence. “You told her?” Stan nods.

“I’m not about to start lying to my wife,” he says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And it is. “I told her she could stay home,” he looks pointedly at his wife. “That she _should_ stay home, that it’d be _safer_. But she didn’t quite believe me.”

“Yeah, until his fortune cookie literally hatched an evil bird.” Richie laughs.

“Shit!” Bev yells suddenly from the bar; the sound of glass shattering follows. Curious eyes follow the sound to her grief-stricken face. “I saw all of us die—in the deadlights. Stan. You’re supposed to be dead! Holy shit.” Instinctively, sheepishly, Stan grabs at his wrists; Patty takes his hand. “None of us can leave until It is dead. Or we’ll all die.”

“I gotta say, this reunion is pretty killer.” The losers groan. 

“Beep _beep_ , Richie!”

In the morning, they regroup only to split up to get their artifacts for a ritual Stan knows doesn’t work. After that little side quest of horror and childhood trauma is over, Stan asks Richie to take a walk with him.

“It’s really good to see you, man.” 

Stan looks at the ground. Watches a turtle cross the street. “I almost didn’t come,” he admits. “You heard Bev, I’m supposed to be dead.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “I knew if I didn’t show, you would’ve lost. I almost took myself off the board.” Richie stops walking, processing Stan’s words. He chances a look at his ~~tallest~~ oldest friend, who’s smiling; fondly, tainted with a touch of sadness in his eyes. Objectively, Stan knows Richie can’t remember all those weeks of trial and error, but in that moment, he thinks Richie knows, to some degree of consciousness or awareness or whatever the fuck one would call it in this shitty fucking situation.

“I’m glad you didn’t, Staniel. We need your dry humor and birdwatching skills to defeat this clown,” he jokes. Stan rolls his eyes and Richie continues, more seriously, “I feel like the only chance we have is if we’re all together.”

Stan shrugs, but he knows it’s true. “Lucky Seven, I guess.” He picks up the turtle and carries him to a rock sticking slightly out of the water below the kissing bridge.

When they return to the townhouse, Eddie’s bleeding from his face and Richie naturally loses his shit. He hovers while Bev patches him up as best she can. 

“I’m fine, Rich. Jesus Christ, you’re so fucking needy.” A spark of recognition snuffs out after their eyes meet. Richie shakes the feeling of _‘am I missing something here?’_ to race over to Mike’s because Ben yells downstairs that Bowers is gone, and Mike is exactly where It would send that mullet-wearing fuckhead. Richie arrives first; finding them on the floor, Bowers on top as they struggle for the knife he’s pushing towards Mike’s throat. Richie doesn’t think; he grabs the first object he sees and buries an ancient fucking axe into Henry Bowers’ skull. 

“That was long overdue,” he says. “Get it? ‘Cause we’re in a library—” 

The rest of the losers, sans Patty because Stan was able to talk some sense into her—thank fuck—arrive while Richie empties his stomach onto the floor. Bev shrieks, cataloging the disaster before them. Ben asks, “Are you alright?” 

“No I’m not alright, I just killed a guy!”

“...I was talking to Mike.”

Stan hugs a trembling Richie close and watches Eddie open and close his mouth at least four times. Stan rolls his eyes, practically shoving Richie into Eddie’s arms. And the losers can’t catch a fucking break, because Big Bill’s nowhere to be found and then Bev is gasping at her phone. Only Stan knows why.

Bill’s gone to Neibolt Street by himself. 

Richie still says it best, “Let’s kill that fucking clown.” Stan, to his relief, doesn’t get decapitated, but they still get split up. The head in the fridge is Adrian Mellon’s. Eddie freezes as it attaches itself to Richie’s face, he can’t do a goddamn thing. Bill is screaming, and so is Stan, trying to pull the kids’ head off their friend. Then Ben is bursting in and stabbing the absolute shit out of the spider head. It releases Richie into Stan’s embrace. 

“You’re okay, Rich. Just breathe.” He knocks his hands away. 

“I’m,” he sucks in a breath. “It’s fine, where—where’s Eddie—”

“He’s okay. We gotta go now.”

The losers make their way down, down, down. Eddie sticks close to Richie after the kitchen. Bill’s words threaten to consume him. He can’t lose Richie, he doesn’t think he’d survive it. Doesn’t think he could survive losing any of his friends, but Richie’s different. He’s _always_ been different. So he stops Richie before they descend the well. “Rich. I can’t go. I’ll get us all killed. You saw me back there, I completely froze!” Richie replies without missing a beat.

“A natural reaction to our current situation, if you ask me.”

“You almost died!”

“But I didn’t. _Eddie_. You’re braver than you think.” Eddie begins to shake his head, so Richie grabs his hand. Their eyes meet. The quiet understanding ignites once more, just for a moment. “You _are_. You’re my bravest friend.” And he sounds so serious, so sincere, that Eddie really, truly believes him. He nods resolutely. Richie was always good at making him feel brave against his fears.

Richie’s got his right hand entwined with Eddie’s and his left gripping Stan’s wrist as they run, right into three doors marked with blood.

“I’ve done this once before. With Bill. It’s a trick.”

“Well, which one do we go through?” Eddie squeezes Richie’s hand. 

“Uh...Very Scary. Definitely Very Scary.” Eddie reaches out and pulls it open. The three men tilt their heads and Richie pulls on a string, turning on a light. It’s a closet. Richie shakes his head. Stan snorts and Richie pushes him. “Shut the fuck up Stan,” but there’s no heat behind the words.

“Oh for fucks sake.” A pair of legs appear, shrieking, prompting them to slam it shut, destroying any idea of going through _that_ door. Stan opens ‘Not Scary At All’. It’s a fucking pomeranian, of all things. Patty’s favorite. 

“I’m not falling for that,” Richie says. “I know your moves, you little bitch.” Eddie tells him to make it sit.

“Sit!” It sits.

“Holy shit, it listened,” Stan whispers.

“That’s a good boy!” A good boy that immediately turns into a monster. Door slammed shut. They decide not to open door number three, and their path is miraculously clear. 

Stanley doesn’t look at the deadlights, but Richie does, and Stan can feel the rightness of it all; can feel the panic building in Eddie nearby. He barely hears, “it kills monsters if you believe it does,” before he’s watching a fence post soar through the air and land right where it’s meant to. Richie drops like a sack of potatoes and lays in a heap of too long limbs and curly dark hair. Stan doesn’t know what’s next. He never got this far. 

Eddie’s running to Richie; his screams muffled by the decidedly pathetic wailing coming from the giant demon clown. 

The blinding, burning, trembling lights free Richie from their grasp. He’s dazed and his vision is milky and blurred. A weight all but collapses on top of him, then. 

“Richie, Richie I think I got it man!” Eddie’s practically straddling Richie, trying to get him to come to. After what seems like hours, his eyes focus on the man above him. “There he is, buddy! I think I did it Rich, I think I killed It, man!” 

And Eddie looks so goddamn proud, so relieved and happy and Richie has a fleeting desire to reach up and kiss his smile, but then Stan’s yelling, “Eddie, move!” Richie instinctively grabs his arms and Stan body checks Eddie; the force of Stan’s running charge has the three of them rolling away in a tangle of limbs just as a talon strikes the very ground Richie and Eddie had just occupied. Eddie looks toward the sound of crunching rock.

“Holy fuck, Stan. Stan! You just saved our asses!”

“Thank me later! We have to move!” He’s already on his feet, running toward a crack in the wall. Eddie stands on shaky legs and offers his hand to Richie, helping him up. Their fingers once again entwine almost automatically; familiar. They slip into the small area where Stan and Bill are waiting for them. Mike, Ben, and Bev join them from a crack on the opposite side. They exchange looks of defeat and exhaustion. Eddie grips Richie’s hand tightly. 

“The leper. I almost...I think I could have killed the stupid fucking leper. It was getting smaller as I choked it.”

“So, what, we make It small?” Ben questions, looking skeptical.

“All living things must abide by the laws of the shape they inhabit,” offers Mike.

They try to slip past Pennywise, into the smaller area where It would have to shrink to fit. But it seems like It’s one step ahead of them and catches them before they can go through with the plan. There’s a lot of yelling, and Pennywise taunts them all. Abruptly, immediately, Stan knows exactly what they have to do. 

“There’s more than one way to make someone small,” he yells. “Hey! You’re just a stupid fucking clown!” Pennywise falters. “Yeah, you ugly piece of shit! I’m not afraid of you!”

“Oh, Stanley, Stan the Man, you shouldn’t be here, your wife—” Eddie, catching on to what Stan meant, interrupts It.

“You’re a bully!” 

“A mimic!” It cowers. Shrinking.

“An old lady!”

“I am the eater of—”

“No, you’re a sloppy fucking bitch!” Smaller, smaller. Almost there.

“A stupid clown!”

“With a scared, beating heart.” Mike reaches down to a trembling little Pennywise and rips Its' heart out. The losers pile their hands under and over Mike’s, and they crush the rotten, blackened organ to dust. It floats up and away.

The Losers Club breathe a sigh of relief and then all immediately collapse into darkness.

* * *

 **i.** **  
**The Losers Club all open their eyes at the same time. They are sprawled out on the floor of the cavern as it begins to shake. Richie startles into a sitting position, his hand locked around another. He looks around frantically; remembering, _remembering_. The taste of copper on his tongue. Ben curled around him at the townhouse. Stan’s decapitation. The cracked lens in his glasses that broke the world up into fractures. The way Eddie looked at him from above. Richie telling Eddie that he loved him. Eddie begging him not to die. Eddie’s last words, over and over and over. “Eddie?” A groan to his right, a squeeze to his hand.

“Rich.” Eddie’s grin is brighter than all of the deadlights, Richie knows for a fact. He’s seen them. “Holy _fuck_ we broke the loop.”

“Yeah, and it took me one try. You guys would be stuck here forever without me.” Richie looks to his left. 

“Stan!” They share a smile.

“Lucky Seven, I guess.”

A rock falls nearby. “Uh, guys?” Bill. Always the leader; the voice of reason. The shaking gets worse. “We nuh-need to go.” The seven losers grab onto each other as they run through the crumbling tunnels and back up the well, out of the house. They don't question where to go, they are not lost. Tugged forward by an invisible rope tied to the seven friends that survived.

The Losers Club stand outside on Neibolt Street, watching the house that plagued nightmares they couldn’t remember collapse in on itself. As if the Earth was swallowing up the mistake it allowed to exist for centuries in their tiny town of Derry. It’s the first time it actually feels real. Out of the loop, out of the curse. Stan is here, he’s alive and a goddamn hero, the Losers Club Most Valuable Loser for the foreseeable future. And Eddie’s hand is tangled with Richie’s, his forehead pressed against his shoulder, burying a smile into his shirt. 

They go to the quarry, because of course they do. The invisible rope pulling them to the cliffs’ edge. And Eddie fucking Kaspbrak, his best friend—his bravest friend—pulls Richie along and right off the cliff, following Beverly’s lead. Memories of events that may or may not have happened at one point, parallel universes, other lives, they all mash together and overlap and break apart only to be put back together by the blinding, burning, trembling smiles that seem permanent on everyone’s faces. They remember, fuck, they remember every single detail but none of it matters anymore. Because they are here now, playing chicken and dunking each other and laughing, laughing, finally free, and it's as if they are seeing each other as they were that summer, and just as they are now. 

* * *

_+i._ _  
_Richie Tozier wakes up at 4:26 in the evening, in the townhouse in Derry, wrapped around his best friend—his bravest friend. Eddie fucking Kaspbrak. He pulls him closer, kisses his temple, his cheek, his jaw. Eddie opens one eye slightly, grumbling.

“Sleep,” Eddie whispers. He reaches up, gently closes Richie’s eyes, fingers slipping down to trace his lips. Richie huffs a laugh and opens his eyes again. “Sleep, love. ‘m tired.” Richie smiles, and it could light up entire cities. It’s blinding, burning, trembling with genuine, unsullied, selfless _love_. Eddie opens his other eye to bask in the warmth of his gaze. “What are you smiling at, asshole?”

Richie cups Eddie’s cheek, turning his head to rest their foreheads together, smirking a little smugly. Eddie thinks he’s beautiful. Richie kisses the corner of Eddie’s mouth. “I don’t know,” he breathes. 

But he knew well enough.

**Author's Note:**

> tw: suicide, blood, domestic violence, homophobia, internalized homophobia
> 
> lmk if i missed any :*
> 
> title from the poem 'do not go gentle into that good night' by dylan thomas


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